A Sabbath Day's Journey

By: Rev. Paul Landgraf

What is a Sabbath day's journey? First of all, it is a Jewish expression. We measure distances in meters or yards. The Jews had a certain distance that they could walk on Saturday before it would be considered work. So their synagogues that they went to on Saturday could not be very far away. The word appears only in Acts 1:12 and indicates a distance of about three-quarters of a mile.

With that in mind, I think it is important to remember the origins of Christianity. Just because we have an Old Testament, it does not mean that we call it the 'Outdated Testament'. Much of the Old Testament has a literary structure that we are not aware of because of our modern emphasis on chapter and verse divisions. Within many of these blogs, I try to get the reader to see a bigger picture, a larger perspective that often includes the Old Testament and the environment that was present when the New Testament was seeing the Light of the day.

Second, a Sabbath day's journey is intentionally short. These 'journeys' with a text, almost always one of the three readings for that Sunday, are deliberately brief discussions. This blog was never designed to be a comprehensive look at any text. Sometimes a specific word is studied in detail. But, as a whole, a blog entry, by itself, is meant to be quite brief.

Finally, since the term 'Sabbath day's journey' appears in Acts, it is meant to appeal to a wide variety of people. This blog is meant for those who cannot come on Sunday mornings. And it is also for those who do come on Sunday mornings but would also like a further study of the text. It is also for those who live somewhere else in the world (besides Drake and Freedom, Missouri, USA) and would simply like a further study of the text. It was meant to get these different groups of people to start thinking about the biblical texts. Part of the reason for this blog is that I am not able to have a bible class on Sunday mornings with either congregation, and so, to have a blog like this seemed like a good idea. I hope it is helpful for you, in whatever situation you may be.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. And thank you for taking the time to read this!

This Sunday is the Fourth Sunday of Easter, and one of the themes for this Sunday is Jesus as the Good Shepherd—it is a role he continues to have as our resurrected Lord. The coronavirus may be considered as sort of a ‘theme’ as well. And the more important theme of Acts 2 also continues this Sunday [the text is verses 42-47], and last week we looked at all the longer speeches in Acts that had 10 or more verses.

As I wrote last week, these speeches take a lot of room in the text. The focus is ultimately not meant to be getting across a lot of INFORMATION, but those longer speeches are given in an effort to be clear about what is most important, SALVATION. And within those speeches, there are some differences when it comes to salvation that are sometimes quickly passed over, but I think those differences are important and that it would be good to go over some of them.

One interesting thing is the way, in those first speeches, that Jesus’ actions are described on the cross. As was mentioned last week, there are five speeches of significant length before the Apostolic Council in Acts 15. The middle (or third) speech in Acts 7 was not to a friendly audience, and Jesus on the cross was barely mentioned in that text. But the other four all had very positive responses, and those descriptions of Jesus on the cross have some significant differences that are worth mentioning.Here are the phrases that talk about Jesus on the cross (with some very literal translations):

Acts 2…this one, by the fixed counsel and foreknowledge of God, he gave him up, through the hands of lawless ones, fastening, you took away his life (verse 23).

Acts 3But you yourselves denied the holy and just one, and you asked for a man, a murderer, to be granted to you, and the author of life you killed…(verses 14-15a).

Acts 10They indeed took away his life, hanging on a tree… (verse 39b).

Acts 13And when they finished all the things concerning him that were written, taking him down from the tree, they placed him into a tomb (verse 29).

First of all, it should be noted that one can easily tell which sermons had an audience of Jews and which had Gentiles—the first two sermons say basically that YOU killed Jesus, and the last two, that THEY killed Jesus. But it is more important to look at some of the diversity here in terms of the crucifixion description.

For such a central event as Jesus’ death on the cross, is such diversity a problem? I would think not. But it IS a problem for some. And the diversity that is seen in the four gospel accounts is also a significant problem for some. Why are the accounts so different if they are talking about the same Jesus?

This may sound a bit strange, but I see some connections between these four speeches and the four gospel accounts. What has helped me to make these connections is a book that has been published recently. It is a book is by Christian Schramm, Die Königmacher: Wie die synoptischen Evangelien Herrschaftslegitimierung betreiben. (Obviously it is in German, and THAT can be a problem for some, but it is not incredibly expensive for its language or length—452 pages. A theological library near you may have this; the publisher is Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, University of Bonn, 2019.)

In Schramm’s book, the three most similar gospel accounts, that of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are studied in respect to their differences, and the differences are attributed to a different aspect of kingship within the culture of that time (and especially within the Old Testament). In other words, each account is giving a slightly different emphasis on what it means for Jesus to be a king. (N.T. Wright does basically the same thing in his somewhat recent book, obviously in English, How God Became King: Getting to the Heart of the Gospels.)

Here are the basic specifics, and I am giving you the German description that Schramm gives [on the back cover of the book], since the words he chooses are quite similar to their English translations: The Gospel according to Matthew has a kingship that is ‘genealogisch-dynastisch’. The Gospel according to Mark has a kingship that is ‘aretologisch-charismatisch’. And the Gospel according to Luke has a kingship that is ‘religiös-theokratisch’. To be extremely brief, Matthew focuses on men, Mark focuses on Jesus, and Luke focuses on God. There are, of course, examples of these emphases, but there is not the space here to give them. And we can see those three emphases connect to the various speeches.

Here are the unique things of each speech being discussed:

Acts 2What is unique in this is, first of all, the contrast between the counsel and foreknowledge of God and what man does; and the focus ends up on man. When the topic of men are brought up, hands are specifically mentioned, and there is also the manual action of ‘fastening’. Jesus is very much a man in the Gospel according to Matthew, specifically a teacher, one who tells us the ‘counsel of God’, who also gives us some ‘laws’ (see Matthew 28:20), but the amazing thing is that he willingly puts himself into the ‘hands’ of lawless men.​Near the beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus almost gets killed by Herod, and after Herod dies, he is in danger from the person who takes his place—certainly a terrible dynasty there! But he gets away from those difficult situations, that is, until he arrives at the most difficult situation of all, the cross.

Acts 3The description of Jesus as the ‘Author of life’ is very radical, and it is heightened by comparing Jesus to Barabbas, a murderer. (This, by the way, is the only way the Gospel according to Mark describes Barabbas; in the Gospel according to Matthew, he is simply ‘notorious’; in the Gospel according to Luke, he is connected to murder AND insurrection; and in the Gospel according to John, he is a robber.)

Jesus certainly stands out in the way he is depicted in the Gospel according to Mark. In that account, Jesus is pretty much alone; his disciples are not depicted as being too good at their jobs; they often did not get what was happening (see, for example, Mark 8:21). In this gospel account, there is also a comparison between King Herod and ‘King Jesus’. Herod falls short of being someone worth following when he kills John the Baptist, because of a promise made to a good dancer (see Mark 6:14-32).

Acts 10What is unique is that Jesus is described as ‘hanging’ on the cross. And only in the Gospel according to Luke is one of the two criminals described in this way (Luke 23:39). By simply describing Jesus being on the cross as ‘hanging’ there, the emphasis gets to be put upon God the Father’s part in all of this. And when the Son of God is put on the level of a criminal, that is something you would not expect. And Jesus, within the Gospel according to Luke, is on the level of the obedient servant to his Father in heaven (for an example of this, see Luke 2:49).

Acts 13The phrase ‘And when they finished all the things concerning him that were written…’ at first seems a little vague and significantly different from the other three descriptions. (And this gospel account is known to be significantly different from the others.) What is going on here? But when it says that ‘taking him down from the tree, they placed him into a tomb’, then it is clear that the speaker is referring to Jesus on the cross.

Within the Gospel according to John, there are a lot of Old Testament references that show that this time was predicted long ago and in many ways. (The account, in general, has a much bigger perspective than the others.) The Old Testament references are hinted at in the other accounts of the crucifixion (and in other times of Jesus’ life), but they are specifically mentioned in this account, and here they are:

19:24 The soldiers cast lots to fulfill scripture.

19:28 Jesus said ‘I thirst’ to fulfill scripture.

19:36 Jesus’ bones were not broken to fulfill scripture.

19:37 Jesus was pierced to fulfill scripture.

Why would there be a connection between the four accounts and the four sermons in the first part of Acts? These are not just four accounts and four sermons that were quickly and haphazardly put together. Again, the issue is an important one, SALVATION. Instead of simply thinking that a certain amount of information was available to the writer, we can think that each writer or speaker was given a certain aspect of kingship to emphasize. When the three synoptic accounts are so close together and basically emphasize different aspects—man, Jesus, and God—those are ALL the main components in that great story of salvation!

Both the speeches and the accounts work together well, and both groups bring to the early church an emphasis on the gospel—in the SINGULAR—of Jesus Christ. This word is very important in the book of Acts. Some people call the four gospel accounts a ‘fourfold gospel’; this keeps the word ‘gospel’ in the singular.

The four accounts and the four sermons have significant differences, and the codex (book) form makes them easier to compare, as we can do today. The somewhat diverse texts were meant to be compared in a positive way. Jesus as King is a significant, multi-faceted statement, and it has some various and significant ramifications.

Perhaps a bible study suggestion for this week would be to compare the following chapters which focus on Jesus’ crucifixion to see some of the different ways in which Jesus is a king over sin—Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23, and John 19. If you desire, you may certainly go on to read the diversity within the resurrection accounts as well—this IS the Easter season after all. These may be seen as the ways in which Jesus is king over death.